There are so many threads out there on how you you want to line up a shot that I figured the only solution was to start a whole new one around an idea that I had last week when trying to explain this to a guy on BowSite.

But I think I’ve gone one better…

Picture a clock face.

The 6 o’clock mark is your dominant eyeball.

The point of the hour hand is your nock.

The shaft of the clock is the point of your arrow, so, obviously, the hour hand is your arrow.

The 12 o’clock mark is your target.

And the flight of your arrow is the hour hand.

Now.

All you gotta do is shoot from right at 6:00.... if you shoot from before 6:00 you’ll miss left. Shoot after 6:00, you’ll miss right. Shoot without knowing where your nock is, and you’ll never hit the same place twice.

But the minute hand is only right on the money when the hour hand is dead nuts 6:00.

Unless of course your shooting a Hill style long bow. Because they are so forgiving you don’t have to be dead nuts on. ;)

Too confusing for this old boy, lol.

But what happens when we set the clocks back? Do we have to start over? That would be really inconvenient because the set back is right when the rut's starting to go into high gear!

And what if you live in the eastern time zone and you want to hunt in the central, or worse yet mountain time?

Is there an app for this?

Nope. Strictly analog. Because we Trad.

I think if you set the clock back you still hit the target but an hour later. I’m going to try this but when we set the clocks ahead in the Spring because then I’m pretty sure you hit the target ahead of schedule......

I gotta say most of youngsters only have digital clocks.

I think you meant to say "The minute hand is the flight of the arrow."

And that nobody picked this up - suggests that the analogy is too confusing for most people.

I eat dinner at 6:00 and like to hit the range just before sundown. No wonder I hit left in the winter, right in the summer and pretty decent in spring and fall.

I was listening to an equipment dealer speaking to a mam one day. He said "The arrow only goes where you point it". He went on to explain how control of your bow arm and keeping your string hand along your face on the release (not plucking the string)is how you keep the arrow pointed where you want it to go. I have always thought his first sentence was a very good thing for folks to remember.

You have got wayyyy too much free time my man. :/

My longbow is slow enough the time change just works itself out.

Hey if it works for Matt thats fine.Maybe he out shoots most you guys.

As NY yankee said. For me it’s that simple. If I can keep my bow hand still at the shot and I get a good release then the arrow will hit where I’m looking. The hard part is keeping my bow hand still at the shot and getting a clean release. :^)

You live in Pennsylvania. You board a train at 10 AM eastern time and head out west for a hunting trip to Wyoming. The train is traveling at 60 MPH. It's October 31st. There's a 4 hour layover at Omaha, Nebraska. You get to Rock Springs, Wyoming on November 1st which is the first day of daylight savings time.

Should you just use a scoped crossbow and say "To hell with it?" ;-)

Need to get arrow under dominant eye and pointed straight at target-everything in line.

???????????

“ I think you meant to say ‘The minute hand is the flight of the arrow.’”

You are correct. I goofed on that one. D’oh.

That’s what I get when it’s past my bedtime.

I think most people who shoot Hill style bows tell time by looking at the sun.

How about this, let’s just shoot our bows and stop overthinking this. LOL

I'll just stay LOST IN TIME.

Woods Walker -Dat was funny -still chuckling

As dad used to like saying, "horse feathers!!!"

That's what happens when someone that doesn't know what he's doing tries to tell you how to do it.

Bob

Huh?????

Okay now wait just a minute.... Let me get this straight.

My dominant eye is at about 3:48pm (eyes usually closed at 3:48am) but I'm hitting at 12:00.

Man...those Story problems. Hated Em.

Good one skeet ! Bout blew my coffee everywhere ! Man I love this place !!!

Well George, I was thinking horse but not feathers. ;-)

Aww, you guys. Looks like like you scared Ricky Ricardo off. ;))

This is complicated. The best explanation ever was in a book - I don't have the text now - but it was something like this: point your bow hand index to the target and look at the point on the target covered by the index. Your index is the arrow - naturally you align the index with the line of sight.

Naw, just working.

Glad you’re amused. At least Otter caught the reference.

So I’ll just add this: When it works, it works like.....

CLOCKWORK!

And yes, you so DID have that coming. :p

Maybe more than the reference.... perhaps? ;))

Outter uses a gang reference. LOL

That's how I see but I was always hard pressed to see any clocks in woods or at certain angles at game in various angles variables while crawling and up to your knees or laying flat on your back and sitting up to shoot.

If your a target shooter maybe but a game shot has many variables. And look how the bows canted, Imagine that.

Close enough!

I think I really screwed this one up with that one typo, but there’s no way to go back and fix it… That’s the only thing I like better about BowSite than here.

Of course, as usual, the people who understood the post (despite that one glaring blunder on my part) are all pinging me on PM so as to avoid the scorn of those who can’t stand tge idea of anyone else learning how to shoot quickly and easily....

You guys are worse than the Dry-Fly Purists who think it’s “cheating” to use a nymph.....

That doesn't seem like a fast way to learn. First you have to learn numbers and how to tell time on an analog clock.

Couldn't you just scrape a line in the dirt?

What about a sundial?

I must be in a different time zone or I may be using a digital watch, either way , I'm lost. I'll check my compass instead...

I read this 3 times, still didn't make sense, so i decided that before it got too far down deep in my brain, and screwed up my shooting style, I'd move on to another thread! It may work for some, but not for me!!

Someone will have to explain analog clocks in a few years when someone looks up the thread.

Using a nymph ISN'T cheating???????

This has been a fun read. Have a great evening.

G.

“ I'll check my compass instead...”

OK, I can roll with that...

Eyeball South

Target North

South end/half of the needle is the shaft; north half is the flight of the arrow.

If your compass needle is bent, you’re gonna miss.

Who was that rapper dude from the 80's 90's ..he wore a clock around his neck. Wonder if he was an archer and onto this way back then.

Just pull back and let er rip

Look at what you want to hit, raise the bow, pull the string to anchor and shoot. Not complicated don't make it so. Frank

The youngsters are all looking at their watches saying "what hands".

Most top shooters shoot upright and anchor side of face somewhere. The arrow is never under their eye.

When I was building back into my blook ws after my last 2 hospital stays I was looking at the point to make sure I reached full draw and was blank bale shooting. When I started shooting to hit I couldn't keep from seeing the arrow and couldn't group or hit what I was trying to. Seeing the arrow throws me off because I have no clue what to do with it since I never learned or used it. It took me almost 3 months before my brain went back to blocking the arrow to bring my shooting back to normal. We don't all see the arrow. Oh sure our minds use something but its not the arrow. Do some reseach into how a brain works and you'll see it blocks images all the time. But nice try Matt. It just don't work that way for some.

It must be winter.

Ya think??

And there you go again Frank...making sense!

“ Most top shooters shoot upright and anchor side of face somewhere. The arrow is never under their eye.”

Are you sure about that, Gary? Seems to me that most top shooters shoot some form of string blur, and with an upright bow, that’s going to put your knock right under your eyeball. That certainly seems to be what the Olympic style shooters are doing when they pinned the string against their nose, and at that point it’s just a question of whether your site pin is short, skinny, and mounted perpendicular to your arrow in the site window, or if it’s longer, fatter, and runs from your fingers to the shelf…

I anchor with the knuckle at the base of my index finger tight under my cheek- bone, all the way back at the temporo-mandibular joint, which is as far out on the side of my face as I can get without losing contact with my face.... but with a little cant, the nock is right where it needs to be.

“Look at what you want to hit, raise the bow, pull the string to anchor and shoot.”

Aye, that’s where we all want to end up. The question I’m trying to address is not “how does an experienced shooter do it“, but “how does a novice get there?”

And if your eyeball isn’t in the same plane as your nock, then you will forever be triangulating, and your windage then becomes nearly as critical as your elevation. If you don’t know where your nock was, relative to your point, then you have no idea of knowing why you missed.

When the nock and the eyeball and the point and the target are all in the same plane, your windage is already solved, and only the elevation is a concern.

Is the OP an example of the exhibition of short man complex?

I may understand, I think, let me just clarify to prove I can do this,

When you say "know where the nock is" you mean the anchor point?

oz

Any youngster shooting a trad bow should know what a real watch is. LOL

"Most top shooters shoot upright and anchor side of face somewhere. The arrow is never under their eye."

I think this is as exact as a broken watch : 2 times in a day will show the right our. Time to review some World Archery competitions - Longbow and Instinctive divisions - to understand how off you are.

"Most top shooters shoot upright and anchor side of face somewhere. The arrow is never under their eye."

I think this is as exact as a broken watch : 2 times in a day will show the right hour. Time to review some World Archery competitions - Longbow and Instinctive divisions - to understand how off you are.

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